Making reports public would aid confidence, writes Mark Hennessy, Political Correspondent
In politics, words matter. For years, the Government rejected demands to set up a Garda Ombudsman to deal with complaints against officers and members. Irritated by comparisons inevitably made between the Garda and the RUC, the Government promised an inspectorate instead.
The line was held by Fianna Fáil's John O'Donoghue during his time in the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, and then by his successor, Mr McDowell.
Eventually, Mr McDowell said the inspectorate would have the powers enjoyed by the Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland, Mrs Nuala O'Loan, only better.
Faced with a continuing clamour for the title, he relented and said the new body would be an Ombudsman Commission, except that it would have three heads, not just one.
The Ombudsman Commission would deal with complaints, but also, when requested by the Minister, produce reports on "systemic" failures within the Garda Síochána. Now, the Minister has decided to set up an inspectorate to operate in parallel to the Ombudsman Commission, with the job of improving policing standards.
More than a few, not surprisingly, have become a little confused. The theory is simple enough. The NI Ombudsman deals with complaints made against members of the police, but does not inspect the general performance of police stations.
This job, throughout the UK, is left up to Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, which now includes former RUC chief constable Sir Ronnie Flanagan.
For instance, the inspectorate arrived on the doorstep of the Rotherham District of South Yorkshire Police for a four-day review last April.
Headed by a chief superintendent, the district serves 250,000 people in an area that has pockets of serious unemployment left over from the passing of the coalfields.
In a generally favourable report, the inspectorate complained there was "a lack of mutual understanding and appreciation" between the district's different police units.
Meanwhile, officers "on the beat" felt they "were overrun with response incidents", and often left without proper support from community police officers and detectives.
Community constables, on the other hand, complained their local knowledge was not being used to best effect: "The sharing of intelligence and information was described 'as practically nil'." In addition, working practices varied between different stations in the division, while middle-ranking officers got in each other's way on occasion.
Under the Minister's plan, presented yesterday in the Garda College in Templemore, a "12- to 15-strong" unit would carry out a similar inspection job in the Republic.
Unlike Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC), the inspectorate, however, would not make promotion recommendations about up-and-coming officers. Instead that will be left to another independent statutory body to be included by the Minister in the Garda Bill (2004).
Some retired foreign police officers, management experts, and so on, will staff the inspectorate, though it is unlikely in the current climate that there will be a role for retired gardaí.
The body will report to the Minister. In the UK, the HMIC reports both to the Home Office and to local police authorities.
Faced with the Minister's original plans for an inspectorate, the Irish Human Rights Commission (HRC) said the Ombudsman's role should be kept entirely separate.
An inspectorate concerned with the use of resources and an Ombudsman concerned about the rights of citizens could come to very different conclusions on issues, the commission believed.
"An inspectorate could conceivably come to very different conclusions about the desirability of using CS gas from an Ombudsman, whose sole brief would be protecting human rights," the commission said in December 2002.
Yesterday, Mr Michael Farrell of the commission expressed fears that the inspectorate could damage the standing of the Ombudsman before it got off the ground if it was perceived as having too much power.
Mr Farrell's comments, made during an RTÉ Morning Ireland interview, represented his own views, and not the commission's, but they were quickly seized upon by the Minister.
Comparing Mr Farrell's comments with the HRC's December 2002 statement, the Minister complained he was being attacked for doing exactly the things he had been asked to do by the HRC.
One can be forgiven for believing the Government would not be unhappy with a row such as this to run during the dog days of summer. In reality, the inspectorate is a perfectly sensible idea, though there will be demands for its reports on the performance of individual Garda districts to be made public.
Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary reports are freely available on the Home Office website, though it would appear likely that those from its Irish equivalent will be seen only by the Minister for Justice, his successors and top officials in this most secretive of departments.